Army Says Plot Is Rare

Ellen Reinhardt

Updated: 2 years ago.

The Army says it has arrested all members of an anarchist militia. The group is accused of plotting to overthrow Fort Stewart in southeast Georgia. The plot came to light after four soldiers at Fort Stewart were charged with killing a former soldier and his girlfriend. District Attorney Tom Durden says one of the defendants -- Private First Class Michael Burnett -- confessed that they killed Michael Roark and his girlfriend because they were afraid Roark would expose the militia’s plot.( photo courtesy of Brian Turner)

The Army says it has arrested all members of an anarchist militia. The group is accused of plotting to overthrow Fort Stewart in southeast Georgia.

The plot came to light after four soldiers at Fort Stewart were charged with killing a former soldier and his girlfriend. District Attorney Tom Durden says one of the defendants -- Private First Class Michael Burnett -- confessed that they killed Michael Roark and his girlfriend because they were afraid Roark would expose the militia’s plot.

He says Burnett said the militia “ had acquired weapons, had acquired information and weapons to do various activities which would have involved overthrowing the government.”

Pentagon spokesman George Wright says such a plot against the military from within its ranks in rare.

He says “This notion of a group of four individuals who allegedly is going to take over Fort Stewart is rather extreme in and of itself.”

Wright says in the more than ten thousand internal felony investigations last year conducted by the Army, only 45 involved illegal actions by groups, most of it drug-related.